


Twitching Fingers Beckon the Dawn

by springbok7



Series: An Assortment of Teas and Biscuits [15]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Head Injury, M/M, Multi, established poly relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springbok7/pseuds/springbok7
Summary: Q bears the consequences of overwork.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dassandre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dassandre/gifts), [AsheTarasovich (natalieashe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/gifts), [Boffin1710](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/gifts).



> To heart-sibs. You know why.
> 
> Unbeta-ed. All errors and typos are mine. Please feel free to let me know if you spot any and/or feel there should be additional tags. I welcome constructive criticism, but neither support or feed trolls.
> 
> Please note that the medical things in this story have not been researched -- as I would normally do -- and are based mostly on my own reading and anecdotal experiences. So I apologies in advance for the inaccuracies that I am certain exist. Just take it as hand-wavy-creative-license-y medical "stuff" if you can.  
>    
>  _I do not own these characters. No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit is being made from this piece of fan-fiction._
> 
>  
> 
> Written 23-28 July 2018

It starts when both James and Alec are away from home, Alec in Vancouver of all place, and James in Kuala Lumpur.  They’re both on mission and incommunicado.

Well, they have their ‘wigs and their mobiles and so on, but neither are in direct communication with HQ at the time and M makes it clear she will not tolerate any notification prior to mission completion.

As much as the minions are afraid of Double O reprisals, they -- wisely -- fear M’s many times more.

She’s an evil Overlord on the best of days, and this?  This is not the best of days.

None of the minions really realise something is wrong until R looks over at the Quartermaster from her adjacent station.

“Q?  Alright, there?”

He doesn’t respond, and before she can take more than a single step towards him he collapses across the worktop, then slides down the face of his work station to sprawl in a gangly heap on the floor.

The minions are frozen in horror, motionless, staring.

R -- tiny, 147 centimetre Gemma, who almost never raises her voice -- starts bellowing orders.

“Alistair, Miriam, take over comms.  Double O Nine is on the Bangui mission.  You’ve read the brief?”

Her first priority is the active mission, but as soon as she’s received their nods she’s dismissed them, the mission, and 009 from her mind.

“Fiona, call Medical, Dr Craig is on call, I believe.”

She drops to her knees beside Q and reaches for his wrist, two fingers finding the vein in no time.

“Sion, blankets and a cushion.  Yes, from the sofa in my office.  Hop to, laddie.”

Q’s pulse is thin and reedy, but there.

A sigh of relief that no one notices, and her shoulders slump as the tension in her breaks.

That, they do notice.

“Gemma, is he ... ? I mean ... “

Sion is back with the requested items and helps R wrap them around Q, cushion under his head.

“No clue, lad.  He’s alive, that’s all I know.”

She’s not going to lie.  Spent years dealing with the use and misuse of truths, half-truths, and lies, and she’s not about to start giving false comfort now.

Moments later, Dr Simon Craig barrels through the double doors into the branch.  He is on his knees beside R in seconds and already checking Q over when four others barrel through the door as well, pushing a gurney and a rolling cart of supplies.

R and Sion are pushed away and ignored while the medical staff work to straighten Q out, examining his pupils, his breathing, his head and his neck.  When they decide it’s safe to move him, they slide a board under him and stabilise his neck, and then lift up to the gurney. They operate as a well-oiled machine.

R might share the Double Os’ poor opinion of Medical as a whole, but she can’t fault the speed or care of their response.  This time.

As the last of the white-coats vanishes through the branch door, she squares her shoulders and claps her hands sharply, twice.

The minions all look to her and she grins a shark’s smirk at them.

“Q’s taking a wee break, lads and lassies.  We’ve got agents to wrangle and Double Os to terrorise.  Let’s hop to and make the Quartermaster proud! No missions lost on our watch until he gets back, hear?”

“Fuck yeah!” -- the over-enthusiastic Alistar even adds a fist pump to his declaration.  R shakes her head at him. He’ll never learn, she thinks.

The rest of the minions provide a more subdued “Yes, R.”

Much more professional.

She’s proud of them all for soldiering on, even though she’s utterly certain they have all, every last one of them, been shaken to the core at the collapse of the imperturbable Quartermaster.

She can only pray to what Gods are listening that the quacks in Medical can do what needs to be done and save the man.

She’s finally got a boss worth bothering with, too!

She’ll be mighty unhappy if the universe takes him away so soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsk tsk tsk, Quartermasters aught to take better care of themselves, really they aught.


	2. Chapter 2

Alec finds out first.  Of course he does. He’s been in the habit of plying Moneypenny with fancy chocolates and expensive trinkets whenever he is off-mission.

They’re not an item and never have been -- despite the abundance of tactile contact -- but she’s as close to a best friend as he’s ever managed outside of James, and Q of course.

M is not entirely pleased about the speed with which he turns up on home soil, but as the mission had been officially wrapped and no one outside the mission got shot, she can’t complain overly.

Even if the dour expression on her face rather looks like she’s bitten a lemon.

She’s a cantankerous old bitch at the best of times and Alec’s neither the patience nor the diplomacy to deal with her.  He simply hands in his AARs -- completed on the bloody transport, you’re welcome, Tanner! -- and fucks off to Medical, debrief be damned.

He sits vigil beside the bed until James turns up, precisely eight days and three hours later.

Double O Seven finished his mission three days earlier but thanks to a miscommunication between the support technician scheduling his exfiltration and the team actually conducting said exfiltration, he’d had to wait 37 hours for his transportation out of the arse end of nowhere where he’d ended up; he’d have been able to do something about the situation if he’d been informed, but no, he’d been told -- every single time he’d asked -- to sit tight, transport would be there ‘soon’.

It isn’t until he’s actually on said transportation -- bouncing along a dirt track in a grotty old jeep that’s long since passed its prime -- that he hears the news, and it’s a damn good thing the driver is separated from the back seats by some archaic old roll cage bars because James can’t actually  _ make  _ him drive faster if he can’t actually get  _ to  _ the man.

Eve talks him down ... eventually.

She’s waiting for him at the Heathrow terminal, too, and takes him straight to Medical.  His AAR won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on, and they both know it, and neither even attempts to force the issue.

Alec’s heard  _ some _ news, but had wanted to wait for James since the doctors said the induced coma would be maintain until they knew more, and that time hasn’t come yet.

So Alec tells James what little he knows: heart concerns, some kind of swelling on the brain with a possible concussion from Q hitting his head on the workstation top, some other things that they are testing for.  General concern about exhaustion, reduced immune system, etc., etc., etc.

They sit and wait together, one on each side of the bed, a pale ghost and a dark shadow.

Eve brings them food.  Coffee. Sleeping bags.  Pants. Pyjamas.

They don’t question how she got into their flat, or how she knew to bring the exact sets that they find most comforting.  The pale yellow and blue sailboat pattern that Q bought James when they visited Corsica. The orange and red motorbikes he bought Alec in Italy.

The pyjamas had been an enormous joke at the times he found them, but they are each so very comfortable, and fit so  _ perfectly _ , that they’ve become the go-to for nights when Q has to work late and one or the other of the Double Os is out on-mission, and the third is left to sleep alone in an empty bed that smells like the three but feels empty as the abyss without them all actually in it.

They take turns, cat-napping while the other stands guard or holds vigil, either one applies.

A routine develops.  None of the three -- Alec, James, or Eve -- care to examine how easily they fall into that routine, but they hold to it, regardless.

Sleep as they need to.  Swap places. Take turns to run down to the canteen when they must.  Devour whatever Eve smuggles in when they’ve not had a chance to forage on their own.

They refuse the offers of assistance from Tanner, R, and the others.

Q stood watch over them and for them times without number, it is the least they can do for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

They meet with the doctors.  Observe the nurses working around them like they’re part of the furniture.

They might as well be, for all the good they feel they’re doing.

But they stay and they observe and they wait.  And wait.

And  _ wait _ .

Concussion.

Swelling of the frontal lobe.

Exhaustion.

Dehydration.

Malnourishment.

The last two trouble the Double Os as they sit.

They haven’t paid near enough attention to his eating habits.

To his sleeping habits.

They know he runs himself ragged.  They know he forgets to eat, to drink, to sleep.

So much work to be done.  His ‘to do’ list is a mile long and grows daily.

But.

How can he care for them when he’s unconscious in Medical?

How can he bring them home when he can’t even bring himself home?

How can he be the voice in their ears when his own has been silenced?

They share looks, across his quiet form.

Eyes meet and slide apart and meet again.

A thousand words exchanged in just a glance.

The doctor has told them -- several times -- that it’s all up to Q now.

If the surgeries and the drains and the shunts and all the rest have done their jobs, he should wake up once they’ve stopped dripping sedatives into his veins.

If his brain is undamaged by the trauma, he’ll be able to make a full recovery.

The doctor stresses -- several times -- that they’ve no way to know what state his mind is in.

Not until he wakes up.

So they sit.  And they wait.

And with the lightening of the sky outside the window, motionless fingers twitch.

They curl in, and flex.

James looks at Alec, and Alec looks at James.

And they know.

It will be ok.  Q is as stubborn as they come and he will fight to regain whatever he might have lost, if anything.

The twitching fingers beckon the dawn.

When the sun rises to herald the day, they will be together once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheee! Progress!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @Bof, happy now? <3

It takes three weeks, six days, and thirteen hours.

It takes the assistance of Alec and James, with Eve hovering over them like a hen with a newly hatched brood.

It takes the longest car ride in the history of car rides -- Not exaggerating, Alec. Slower than Maman’s Nan with the cart horse! -- from Medical to the flat.

But finally -- finally! -- Q is in his own kitchen, at his own table, in his very own chair.

And he got there under his  _ own  _ power.

It may have taken him forever, and may have needed one of those bloody walkers with the fucking tennis balls on the bottom, but he  _ made it _ .

He sits in that chair and just breathes, slowly, carefully, mindfully, as he waits for his energy to return enough to ask for a glass of water.

They will hold the glass, he already knows that.  He hasn’t the strength yet to support the weight after the trek in from the car.

But he’s getting there.

The physiotherapists have been  _ most  _ impressed with his progress.

Alec and James just roll their eyes when they gush; they always knew Q was a stubborn little shite and now there is proof positive.   _ Anyone  _ else would have taken at  _ least  _ six weeks to regain sufficient independence to be released home.  But not Q.

Though, to hear him tell the story, he was going slowly mad in there.

Four white walls.  No computer. Hell, no tech whatsoever because of his eyes.

Head injury.

Better safe than sorry, but he was  _ not  _ impressed with the tedium.

So what did he do instead?

He buckled down.  Listened to the doctors and nurses and physiotherapists and speech therapists and occupational therapists.  Was there  _ any  _ therapists he  _ didn’t  _ see?

Alec and James couldn’t quite believe it when they saw him jotting very shorthand notes during a few sessions.  He could barely hold the pen, but he managed to make it work, and the therapist  _ beamed  _ at him for pushing himself.

So now he’s home.

He will need continued physio for a few weeks more, maybe months, to help regain the tone in his legs, and to guide him through the strengthening exercises and make sure he’s not skimping on the wrong bits.

He will need continued speech therapy because he’s got some residual aphasia, though the doctors and the therapist agree that it’s likely to fade over time, they just want him to keep on with the therapy to make sure there are not other, delayed, issues cropping up, especially considering how critical fast speech is when he’s on comms.

He will need continued care and feeding to rebuild the weight he’s lost, and the muscle tone he’s lost, and the stamina and endurance he’s left behind in the hospital bed in Medical.

But James has already promised he will cook everything the nutritionist has suggested, and make it palatable for Q’s tastes.

Alec has both promised to not help James with the cooking, and to build some exercise rigs for Q so that he can rebuild himself at a steady pace.

Eve has promised to keep M and Tanner and the rest away except in small and controlled doses.  Because murder will land Q in a different box and none of them want that.

And R?  R has managed to talk The Powers That Be into -- albeit managed and rigorously timed -- sessions with the Six servers and coding and the communion of spirits that is Q in the midst of his tech.

If he wasn’t already in a committed relationship -- and gay -- he’d marry the woman.

She laughs at him for ten minutes straight when he forgets himself and tells her that.

He forgives her, and Eve, and Alec and James.

He is home.

And he is glad of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have enjoyed this short little ride :)


End file.
